Increased armoring (“up-armoring”) of the HMMWV (commonly known as HumVee) and other light tactical military vehicles to provide an increased level of soldier protection has resulted in an upward shift in the vehicles' center of gravity (CG), making them prone to roll or tip over during evasive maneuvering, off-road travel and IED/RPG (improvised explosive device/rocket propelled grenade) attack. When an up-armored vehicle rolls over, many times the crew cannot egress via the doors due to the weight of the armor on the doors, or jamming of doors from the vehicle frame twisting. The gunner's station is not an option for exit either if the vehicle is upside down. The result is that the crew is often killed due to vehicle fires, follow-up insurgent attacks, trauma injuries and drowning. To further complicate matters, a rollover during a night time operation makes it difficult for the crew to quickly locate any emergency egress system inside the vehicle.
In some cases an armored vehicle, whether up-armored or instead armored by original design, may crash or be attacked and not roll over, and yet the crew may find itself in poor visibility conditions, and so unable to quickly locate any emergency egress system and operate its release mechanism.
There is therefore a need for an improved emergency egress system for armored (ground) vehicles, an egress system that is designed to help the crew locate it in conditions of poor visibility caused by a rollover or a high acceleration or deceleration event, such as a crash or an IED or RPG attack.